March 26, 2015
It looks like Winstons.
It looks like Winston’s.
WILLIE JACKSON
27 MARCH 2015
Well it looks like Winston Peters could steal the Northland by-election from the Government. He has run a terrific campaign taking it to National at every opportunity. In the one television debate that happened, the Government was so nervous of Winston that they didn’t allow their candidate Mark Osborne to sit in the same studio. They came up with a flimsy excuse that their man was too busy campaigning so they sat him in a studio up north while Winston was in the main headquarters at TVNZ. The result was that Winston made Osborne look like a rank amateur. Winston gave a vintage performance and no doubt secured more votes in the process.
John Key totally underestimated how dangerous Winston is, dismissing him at the beginning of the campaign and saying he had zero chance of succeeding. But the Keys prediction has been turned on its head – so much so that he has now had to resort to good old pork barrel politics, coincidently promising to fix the bridges in the North and also anything else that might need attention. As well, Key has directed most of his Cabinet and senior MPs to campaign in Northland, but it looks like the strategy is not having much effect. In fact, the latest poll suggests Winston might just about canter home. He was 20 percent ahead of Osborne in Wednesday night’s TV3 survey.
Still there are no guarantees in politics and Winston knows that better than anyone. Osborne still has a chance, although that would totally disappear if the allegations against the former Northland MP Mike Sabin came out.
But that’s not going to happen before this weekend, so National will be hoping that a split vote with some people voting for Labour might just get them home. They will be very lucky if that turns out to be the case.
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